Tag Archives: Casey McGehee

Back in February, I took my first shot at attempting to rank players for fantasy purposes. After a full season, I thought it wise to take a look back at how they went, and compare them to how it actually turned out and see if there is anything to be gained from it. Next up is the review of my 3B rankings.

As we rapidly approach the All Star break, I can honestly say that once again we’ve had quite a bit going on in the world of baseball to this point. Rookies making their debut all over the place, no-hitters everywhere (and near no-hitters), retirements, and of course the start of the trade deadline rumor mill.

All-Star Teams

Every month prior to the All-Star break, I will create my All-Star teams for each league. I plan on following the same guidelines given to the managers of the All-Star game when selecting my teams for each month. Those would be:

34 man rosters, 21 position players, 13 pitchers

Each team must be represented

Now that we’ve received the final voting updates for the All-Star game, I will start the lineups with that, and build the team around that. All stats are through Tuesday’s games.

I took Jason Heyward out of the starting lineup since he has already stated that if he is selected, he won’t play due to his thumb injury. I picked McCutchen to replace him in the lineup as both Braun and Ethier are corner outfielders, and McCutchen plays CF. Other players who are likely to be replaced, but have not been as of yet: Chase Utley (who I would replace with Casey McGehee of the Brewers), and Placido Polanco (who I would replace with Ryan Zimmerman). Looking at the All-Star starters, the only one who really hasn’t done a whole lot offensively to deserve it at this point, to me anyway, is Yadier Molina. But it’s hard to argue with a catcher who has a pitching staff with 2 All-Star starting pitchers and a 3rd who is also deserving (Chris Carpenter).

Unfortunately, the retirement of Griffey was overshadowed by the near-perfect game that was thrown on the same night by Tigers’ pitcher Armando Galarraga. By now, it seems to have blown over, as it is not really mentioned nearly as much as it was when it happened. I wrote up my thoughts on it at the time, and I think that they are still pretty apt a month later.

It was a bit of an up-and-down month for Carlos Zambrano, as he was brought back into the rotation early on in the month, only to have blown his top in the dugout of his last start on the 25th. He is currently on the restricted list and is seeking treatment in New York. What that treatment is exactly for is anyone’s guess, but I would have to imagine it has something to do with his temper. Hopefully he’ll be able to return after the All-Star break to the form that had made him an All-Star previously.

Yet another no-hitter was thrown in the month of June, with Edwin Jackson of the Diamondbacks throwing one on June 25th. The story with the no-hitter seemed to be 2 fold: One, that manager A.J. Hinch had left Jackson in the game to throw a total of 149 pitches to get through the start, and two, that Jackson had allowed 10 different baserunners without allowing a hit. Either way, it was probably one of the more improbable no-hitters that we have seen in awhile.

June clearly was the month of rookie debuts. Some of the rookies making their season (or career) debuts in June: Pedro Alvarez, Brad Lincoln, and Jose Tabata of the Pirates, Dayan Viciedo of the White Sox, Madison Bumgarner of the Giants, Andrew Oliver of the Tigers, and Felix Doubront of the Red Sox. But there were 3 names that were covered more than any other, and with good reason: Mike Stanton of the Marlins, Carlos Santana of the Indians, and Stephen Strasburg of the Nationals. Stanton has been a bit of a mixed bag to this point, hitting .217/.276/.348 with 2 homeruns and 3 stolen bases so far. In any other season, Santana would be the rookie debut most discussed, as he has caught fire and is hitting everything that moves in the American League. To date, Santana is hitting .333/.456/.704 with 8 doubles, 4 homeruns, and 14 runs batted in through 17 games.

Clearly though, the story on everyone’s mind all month long has been the debut and subsequent starts of Stephen Strasburg. Strasburg electrified Nationals fans, and the league as a whole after striking out 14 in 7 innings in his debut against the Pirates on June 8th. He’s done nothing but pitch well ever since, and despite a 2-2 record, he now has a 2.27 ERA, a 1.01 WHIP, and 48 strikeouts to 7 walks in only 31 2/2 innings pitched. That’s a K/9 rate of 13.6, the highest of any starter so far this season. Having watched the highlights of all his starts, and parts of others as they happened, the kid is legit. With the injury of Jason Heyward toward the end of the month, the NL Rookie of the Year race is wide open and I think Strasburg could very well take it.

The hot stove league has heated up slowly so far, with minor trades of Dontrelle Willis and Conor Jackson being the only players of note. But with Cliff Lee likely to be traded, and rumblings of Roy Oswalt being available, it is only a matter of time before there are many more deals to discuss. I plan to do reviews like I did during the offseason of some of the major ones when they happen.

The MLB draft was also on June 8th, and the only real surprise of the first round was the fact that Nationals’ top pick Bryce Harper was announced as an outfielder, not a catcher. Clearly, this will make his path to the Majors that much faster, as his bat could be pretty close to Major league ready as it stands now.

What’s Coming in July

I am actually pretty well planned out for the month of July for posts. I went through teams #30 to #15 in my Original Draft Series, where I look at each organization and build a roster based on each player’s original professional franchise. In July, I will continue on with the series, posting about teams #14 through 11 later on in the month. In addition, I will be reviewing the rosters of the All-Star teams after they are announced on Sunday, and critiquing my own choices versus the managers. Also, I will look back on how the prospects I reviewed in the offseason have progressed so far, and how they are stacking up to my own predictions (wild as they may have been).

I will also be starting up the book reviews I had previously mentioned that I had hoped to do. The first book on the list is Fantasyland by Sam Walker. I also picked up a pair of older copies of Baseball America’s Almanac (the 2003 and 2008 editions) at a used book sale last week, and have been looking through some of the information for some post ideas, and found some pretty good ones so far.

Thanks again to all the readers, and if you’re enjoying the writing, please feel free to either write a comment on the posts, and take a few seconds to become a fan of Jason’s Baseball Blog on Facebook. You can do that here.

The Cubs have had some very solid success stories out of the draft, with Kerry Wood pitching well for the team for over 13 years. Unfortunately, a lot of the first round picks have been a mixed bag at best. You have 1998 1st rounder Corey Patterson, who never really came to be the player that the Cubs had thought he would. You have 1997 first rounder Jon Garland who was traded away to the crosstown White Sox for essentially nothing. And of course there’s the story of can’t-miss phenom Mark Prior, who was derailed after a couple of great seasons by injuries. In the last few years, you have players who have provided some value to the team, but many who have not done a whole lot for the organization as a whole. Some credit is due to the Cubs’ player development department, as there have been a lot of Major League regulars who have gone through the system at one point or another.

International Free Agency

The Cubs have done fairly well with the international markets. Carlos Zambrano (personality concerns aside) has probably been the best player they have signed out of a foreign country, and Carlos Marmol has really evolved into a top-flight reliever. Starlin Castro looks like he will have the potential to be a top tier shortstop with some more development as well. The biggest dollar signee that they have had out of the international markets is Kosuke Fukudome out of Japan. Fukudome has been a reasonably good outfielder to this point, but is probably not playing to the level that the Cubs had hoped when they gave him a 4 year, $32 million contract after the 2007 season.

Overall Grade

C+ – Overall the Cubs have done pretty well with developing players, and there were actually quite a few players (Sean Marshall, James Russell, among others) that were left off this roster but who are currently with the organization and have done reasonably well to this point in their careers. Unfortunately, they are also just as likely to have traded away useful players, and in many of these trades I don’t believe that they did all that well to get the returns and get what they needed to compete. Obviously, the product on the field has not quite been what they were looking for either, as the championship drought continues into its 102nd season.

Monday was a pretty quiet day overall, with the exception of the slide by Casey McGehee that took out Angels’ SS Erick Aybar. Aybar has avoided the disabled list to this point, but it remains to be seen if he will be able to return soon or not yet.

Wednesday brought yet another top prospect to the Majors, with Pirates’ 3B Pedro Alvarez getting the call to the Show. Alvarez was yet another high end prospect making his debut this season for the Pirates, with Jose Tabata and Brad Lincoln both making their debuts in the previous week. Clearly, Alvarez has a better pedigree than both of those two, and was widely considered to be the top prospect in the Pirates system. What a year for rookies.

Also on Wednesday we saw a bit of a scary moment, as Giants’ ace Tim Lincecum was hit by a line drive on the shoulder. It sounds like he’s going to make his next start, but it is something to be watched to be sure.

Thursday saw an unfortunate injury, with Rockies’ SS Troy Tulowitzki being hit by a pitch on his wrist. He was placed on the disabled list on Friday, and will miss between 6-8 weeks. Tough break (literally and figuratively).

Friday brought Mannywood back to Boston for the first time since being traded by the Red Sox. Overall, the reaction was pretty reasonable, as there was some booing but overall not too bad. He unfortunately wasn’t able to lead the Dodgers to a victory on either Friday or Saturday, but did have a good game on Saturday with a home run and a stolen base.

Friday was also the 3rd start of Stephen Strasburg, this time against the White Sox. Strasburg went 7 innings, allowed only 1 earned run, and struck out 10 batters. The Nationals pulled him after 7, even though he had only thrown 85 pitches. My question is this: At what point do they allow him to go either more than 7 innings or approach 100 pitches?

ESPN posted an interesting article on Friday about what major league teams are doing to help prepare their prospects for the upcoming implementation of the new Arizona immigration law.

On Tuesday, the Athletics acquired OF Conor Jackson from the Diamondbacks for minor league P Sam Demel. The Athletics had supposedly been looking at acquiring Jackson for quite a long time, but looking at the A’s team I am not sure exactly how this is going to help them to improve the team.

Chipper Jones was brought up in discussion about whether or not he would retire at the end of this season, or if even it was possible he might do so before the end of the season. He is currently under contract for 2 more seasons, so unless some version of a settlement occurs to help determine the status of that contract, I don’t think he does. He stated during the week that he would not discuss it any further during the season, to avoid distracting from the retirement of Bobby Cox.

The Mets sent reliever Jenrry Mejia down to AA on Sunday, with the intent of lengthening him out to become a starting pitcher. It’s about time.

Upcoming Posts This Week:

Tuesday: The Original Draft Series – Team #24 and #23
Wednesday: The Original Draft Series – Team #22 and #21
Thursday: The Original Draft Series – Team #20 and #19
Friday: Trade Retrospective – Rickey Henderson to the Athletics

The Brewers finished the 2009 season with an 80-82 record, good for 3rd place in the division. The team had some excellent performances on offense, led by 1B Prince Fielder (.299, 46 HR, 141 RBI), LF Ryan Braun (.320, 32 HR, 114 RBI, 20 SB), and rookie IF Casey McGehee (.301, 16 HR, 66 RBI). Unfortunately, the rest of the offense was rather middling, and only scored 785 runs last year. The pitching staff, now missing the excellent half-season of free-agent departee C.C. Sabathia, was led by Yovani Gallardo (13-12, 3.73 ERA). Unfortunately, the rest of the staff pitched extremely inconsistently, with replacement level performances from Braden Looper, Jeff Suppan, Manny Parra, and Dave Bush.

Team Outlook for 2010

The Brewers officially ushered in the Major league career of SS prospect Alcides Escobar early in the offseason with the trade of SS J.J. Hardy to the Twins. They were able to replace free agents C Jason Kendall and SP Braden Looper with C Gregg Zaun and SP Doug Davis, respectively. The Hardy trade also brought their replacement for CF Mike Cameron, another free agent departee. Their main free agent signing this offseason has to be SP Randy Wolf. Wolf will help to bring stability to the rotation, and allow Davis, Jeff Suppan, and Dave Bush to slot in closer to their proper positions in the rotation. The offense is led by elite 1B Prince Fielder and LF Ryan Braun, and should be helped by the return of 2B Rickie Weeks and RF Corey Hart from injuries. This team has done well to build around its solid core of top players, and has also tried to find some veteran presence with Trevor Hoffman and OF Jim Edmonds.

Fantasy Outlook for 2010

OF Ryan Braun and 1B Prince Fielder are both 1st round talents regardless of format. After that, SP Yovani Gallardo is really the only player who’s ownable in all formats. For some deeper leagues, I would recommend SS Alcides Escobar (for SB potential), and SP Randy Wolf as well.

Prediction for 2010

The Brewers are improved over last season, but I think that they’re going to need a little luck if they were to pass either Chicago or St. Louis. As of right now, their offense and pitching are both not quite up to the standard of a division leader. But they’re getting closer.

In my predictions, I noted that I thought Andrew McCutchen would win, but that it wouldn’t surprise me if Coghlan won instead. The voting for this award was much more spread out than its AL counterpart:

Chris Coghlan
Coghlan joined the Marlins on May 8th, and from there just hit and hit and hit. In 128 games, he hit .321/.390/.460, with 9 homers, 8 steals, and 84 runs scored. This while also learning a new position (LF) that he had never played before. While there were definite growing pains associated with learning this new position, Coghlan’s bat more than made up for it. He should only get better as he matures.J.A. Happ
Happ really made a huge impact this season, making the roster in the bullpen out of spring training, and when injuries hit transitioning into a starting role. He finished the year with a 12-4 record, a 2.93 era, 3 complete games (2 shutouts), and a 1.24 whip. I doubt highly that the Phillies would have made the postseason if not for the contributions of Happ. Apparently I had completely forgotten about him when making my predictions, because he would definitely have been ahead of McCutchen had I remembered.Tommy Hanson
Hanson did not make his debut until June 7th, but it was definitely worth the wait. He finished the season with an 11-4 record, a 2.89 era, a 1.18 whip, and 116 strikeouts in 127 2/3 innings. Hanson is the next great Braves starter, and I am really looking forward to what he can do in a full season. A player that I discounted somewhat because of not being up for the full season, but probably should have included as well.Andrew McCutchen
McCutchen did not debut until early June either, but went on a tear once he was there. He finished with a .286/.365/.471 line with 12 homers, 54 rbi, 22 steals, and 74 runs. While the trade of Nate McLouth was extremely unpopular with Pirate fans, it allowed them to really showcase McCutchen, who didn’t disappoint. I think that he would have won this award hands down if he had been up for the full season. He’s going to be really interesting to watch, and hope that the Pirates can keep him long term. Casey McGehee
McGehee was actually put on waivers at the end of last season by the Cubs, and they are going to regret letting him go. The Brewers used him as a sort of super-utility, trying to get his bat in the lineup while trying him at multiple positions. He played 2B, 3B, and even 1B for them last season, while hitting the cover off the ball to the tune of .301/.360/.499 with 16 homers and 66 rbi. Hopefully next season the Brewers will pick one position to let him play, and leave him there. But that could prove interesting with the return of Rickie Weeks, and the promotion of top prospect Mat Gamel.

Randy Wells
Wells did well this season, and really helped to solidify the Cubs rotation. He compiled a 12-10 record, with a 3.05 era, 1.28 whip, and 104 strikeouts in 165 1/3 innings. Originally drafted as a rule 5 player by the Blue Jays, he was returned to the Cubs during the 2008 season. While the season for the Cubs was lost, Wells was a bright spot on an otherwise poor starting rotation.

Garrett Jones
Jones was never really considered a top flight prospect, especially since he was 27 when he was called up for his first real length of time in the majors. But he hit. .293/.372/.567 with 21 homers in just 82 games. While it remains to be seen what he can do with a full season, he should be very interesting to watch, especially since he is likely to get consistent playing time in 2010.

Overall, another group where not every top prospect made an impact. At the beginning of the season, Rasmus, Hanson, Fowler, and Cameron Maybin were all mentioned as top candidates, and only Hanson really had a showing worthy of the award.